'Brokeback' Gets 7 Golden Globe Nominations

The Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. endorsed a thwarted romance between two cowboys Tuesday morning as it recognized Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain with seven Golden Globe nominations, hailing it as best picture and recognizing best actor Heath Ledger and best supporting actress Michelle Williams.

The other nominees in the best drama contest include the African-set thriller The Constant Gardener (on DVD Jan. 10 from Universal); Good Night, and Good Luck, the account of Edward R. Murrow's stand against Sen. Joe McCarthy; the murderous tragedy A History of Violence (on DVD Feb. 28 from New Line); and Match Point, Woody Allen's London-set tale of infidelity.

On the lighter comedy-musical side, the HFPA choose as its five nominees Mrs. Henderson Presents, set in a London theater during World War II; the Jane Austen adaptation Pride & Prejudice; the adaptation of the Broadway musical The Producers; The Squid and the Whale, a study of a New York family split by divorce; and Walk the Line, a musical biography of Johnny Cash and June Carter.

But the HFPA mixed it up further with its nominees for best director. Four of the best dramas earned nominations for their helmers — Lee for Brokeback, Allen for Match Point, George Clooney for Good Night, and Fernando Meirelles for The Constant Gardener. But History of Violence failed to earn a nom for David Cronenberg. Instead, the Globe voters tossed out nominations to Peter Jackson for King Kong and Steven Spielberg for Munich.

On the TV side, the HFPA singled out the dramas "Commander in Chief," "Grey's Anatomy" (first-season DVD available Feb. 14 from Buena Vista), "Lost" (first-season DVD available from Buena Vista), "Prison Break" and "Rome."

But it was ABC's "Desperate Housewives" (first-season DVD available from Buena Vista) which dominated the TV rankings, picking up five nominations, one as best comedy series as well as best actress noms for its four principal actresses, Marcia Cross, Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman and Eva Longoria. The fifth actress in that race was Mary-Louise Parker, who plays a different sort of desperate surburbanite in Showtime's "Weeds."

The other comedy program contenders are "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Entourage" (first-season DVD available from HBO), "Everybody Hates Chris" and "My Name Is Earl."

In the best dramatic film actor category, Ledger will be facing off against three actors playing real-life figures — Russell Crowe as boxer Jim Braddock in Cinderella Man (on DVD from Universal), Philip Seymour Hoffman as author Truman Capote in Capote and David Strathairn as CBS journalist Murrow in Good Night. The fifth slot went to Terrence Howard for his performance as a small town pimp trying to break into the music business in Hustle & Flow (on DVD Jan. 10 from Paramount).

On the best dramatic film actress front, the nominees were Mario Bello, who plays a woman dealing with her husband's dangerous past in A History of Violence; Gwyneth Paltrow, struggling with a family history of genius and madness in Proof (on DVD Feb. 14 from Buena Vista); Charlize Theron, fighting with sexual harassment in North Country (on DVD Feb. 21 from Warner); Zhang Ziyi, learning to become a geisha in Memoirs of a Geisha; and Huffman, playing a pre-operative transsexual reuniting with her son in Transamerica.

With noms for both Transamerica and "Housewives," Huffman was one of the morning several multiple nominees. Clooney scored three citations — best pic and directing noms for Good Night as well as a best supporting actor nomination for his CIA operative in Syriana. Among the TV contenders, Donald Sutherland stake a claim in two races — best performance by an actor in a miniseries for his work in "Human Trafficking" and best performance by a supporting actor in a series for his role as the Speaker of the House in "Commander in Chief."

For best actor in a movie musical or comedy, the nominations were spread among Pierce Brosnan, playing a hit man in The Matador, Jeff Daniels as an intellectual contending with divorce in The Squid and the Whale, Johnny Depp as candy maker Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (on DVD from Warner), Nathan Lane as a larcenous Broadway producer in The Producers, Cillian Murphy as a cross-dresser in Breakfast on Pluto, and Joaquin Phoenix as singer Cash in Walk the Line.

Phoenix's Walk the Line co-star Reese Witherspoon, who plays June Carter, scored a nomination in the best musical-comedy actress race, where she will compete with Judi Dench as an upper-class theater owner in Mrs. Henderson, Keira Knightley as a young woman flirting with marriage in Pride & Prejudice, Laura Linney, as a wife in the middle of an affair in The Squid and the Whale, and Sarah Jessica Parker, as a woman who confronts her future in-laws in The Family Stone.

Supporting movie actress nominees were Scarlett Johansson for Match Point, Shirley MacLaine for In Her Shoes (on DVD Jan. 31 from Fox), Frances McDormand for North Country, Rachel Weisz for Gardener and Williams for Brokeback.

In addition to Clooney, the supporting film actor nominees were Matt Dillon for Crash (on DVD from Lions Gate), Will Ferrell for The Producers, Paul Giamatti for Cinderella Man and Bob Hoskins for Mrs. Henderson.

Screenwriters nominated for best screenplay were Allen for Match Point, Clooney and Grant Heslov for Good Night, Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco for Crash, Tony Kushner and Eric Roth for Munich and Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana for Brokeback.

Best motion picture score nominees were Alexandre Desplat for Syriana, James Newton Howard for King Kong, Gustavo Santaolalla for Brokeback, Harry Gregson-Williams for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and John Williams for Geisha.

The best motion picture song lineup was: "A Love That Will Never Grow Old" from Brokeback Mountain, music by Santaolalla, lyrics by Bernie Taupin; "Christmas in Love" from Christmas in Love, music by Tony Renis, lyrics by Marva Jan Marrow; "There's Nothing Like a Show on Broadway" from The Producers, music and lyrics by Mel Brooks; "Travelin' Thru" from Transamerica, music and lyrics by Dolly Parton; and "Wunderkind" from Narnia, music and lyrics by Alanis Morisette.

Sony Pictures Classics took two of the foreign film nominations, one for Stephen Chow's martial arts comedy Kung Fu Hustle (on DVD from Sony) and the other for Christian Carion's Merry Christmas, the French film about a Christmas truce during World War I that SPC picked up at this year's Festival de Cannes. Miramax Films figured in the race with its first pickup under the regime of its new president Daniel Battsek with Gavin Hood's South African drama Tsotsi. The new Weinstein Co. scored with Master of the Crimson Armor, the Chen Kaige film that it picked up in Cannes when it was titled The Promise. And WIP was represented by Hany Abu-Assad's Paradise Now, a portrait of two suicide bombers.

The Globe winners will be announced Jan. 16 at ceremonies at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, which will be broadcast by NBC.